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Today’s Micro Business contributed post comes from Bianca Hidalgo, owner of All Things Written.
Oxymoronic as it may seem, many people decide to start a business during economic recession. In fact, many of the current heavy hitters in big business got their start during an economic downturn – General Electric, Burger King, Microsoft, and Hewlett Packard are a few.
Whether it be necessity, opportunity, or a nothing to lose mentality, recession breeds an entrepreneurial spirit in many employees that find themselves jobless, earning less income, or with fewer prospects.
How many people have you come across in the past few months who’ve passed you a businesscard for their web or home based business? How many updates in your Facebook newsfeed have been from friends requesting you “like” their new business page or even a friend of friend’s page?
Today’s micro business owners can look around and find that they are not alone. Emergent Research released a study, Homepreneurs: A Vital Economic Force, reporting that there are 6.6 million home-based businesses in the United States, employing more than 13 million people nationwide in 2008. That doesn’t include the millions of small business owners with actual establishments.
With new businesses popping up everywhere, one challenge micro business owners face during a recession is maintaining visibility in a sea of businesses, some of which may not be so credible.
One survival strategy is to check out what your competition is offering (which you should always be doing anyway). A recent search for editorial services in my locale showed that there was a dramatic increase of individuals who identified themselves as writing or editing professionals offering a wide range of professional services below market value. Observant consumers are likely to see past websites with blatant misspellings or fly-by-night listings on internet classifieds. But what about the competitor micro business that offers average quality work at low cost? During an economic recession consumers want the best price and may be willing to sacrifice quality on some services and products.
Despite being undercut by competitive pricing, a credible micro business never delivers sub-quality work, but continues to produce top quality work at fair market value. Although times are tough, times ain’t that tough to forgo integrity. And remember, after a downturn there’s always an upturn.
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